Isabella Stewart Gardner loved bringing people together for parties, and the tradition continues today at Gardner After Hours. On an evening last month, 320 people socialized in the Gardner Museum’s Venetian style courtyard garden, sipping art-inspired drinks.

Isabella Stewart Gardner loved bringing people together for parties, and the tradition continues today at Gardner After Hours. On an evening last month, 320 people socialized in the Gardner Museum’s Venetian style courtyard garden, sipping art-inspired drinks.

“This is a treat,” said Sarah Grosvenor, as she relaxed with her friend before heading to hear a dramatic reading. “We’re very psyched. We’re going to each event.”

Part cocktail party and part entertainment, Gardner After Hours is a gathering that the art collector and patron would have appreciated.

“Isabella had a sparkling social life, and we have a sparking social situation going on at After Hours,” said Jessie Schlosser Smith, director of program planning.

Started in 2007, halted during construction of the new wing and reinstated a year ago, Gardner After Hours appeals to all ages, but specifically to people in their 20s and 30s, Smith said. It often draws people to the museum for the first time.

“The mood is different,” said Julia Brucker, manager of tours and visitor learning programs. “During the day, it can be more introspective. After hours, it’s looser and informal. Everyone is here to have fun.”

Organized around a theme, Gardner After Hours last month focused on the special exhibit, “Anders Zorn: A European Artist Seduces America,” which runs through May 13. Visitors heard actor and Cohasset native John Kuntz bring the Swedish artist to life as he read from his memoirs. In the living room of the museum’s new wing, people played the board game Halma, a popular Victorian game Zorn painted in one of his portraits. In the art studio, they tried their hand at etching while an iPod played background music and their wine glasses rested nearby.

Before the new wing opened in 2010, Gardner After Hours was limited in its activities. Now, there’s plenty of space for people to lounge, get messy with paints and dine in Cafe G.

Jacqueline Aldred, 26, of Jamaica Plain, was visiting the museum for the first time with her boyfriend, Eliot Cohen, and a cousin, and enjoyed making an etching in the new art studio.

“We came because we thought it would be a fun way to mix and mingle,” Aldred said. “We’ll be back.”

In the Dutch room, Brucker told the story of how Gardner came to collect art and build the museum to house it and her fourth floor apartment. On the opposite wall, two empty frames hung, awaiting the hoped-for return of the stolen canvasses.

“She used to stand on her balcony and watch people as they looked at the art,” Brucker said. “She felt it was so valuable that she should share it with the public. She said she wanted to fire the imagination.”

Page 2 of 2 - Smith said the program has been described as “the museum letting its hair down.” Instead of a single hour-long talk, curators and performers hold 20 minute “conversations” multiple times during the evening.

“It’s flexible and people can choose their own adventure,” Smith said. “It’s a perfect way to learn a little bit about many difference aspects of the museum.”

Reading from Zorn’s account of how Gardner came to be his patron after seeing his art at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, actor Kuntz said: “A woman dressed all in black pointed at me and said, ‘I want to have that painting. May I buy it?”

That was the start of a close relationship, during which Gardner invited Zorn and his wife to spend a summer with her and her husband in their rented Venetian palace. A highlight of the Zorn exhibit is the portrait he painted that summer when Gardner stepped from her balcony to greet her party guests.

“When she emerged...it was grandly majestic. She had a charm in her voice that turned the rest of us into slaves,” Kuntz read from Zorn’s memoir.

In the new wing’s living room, people lounged and chatted. In Boston for a gaming convention, four friends from New York City headed to the museum for the program and settled down to play the game Halma.

“It feels really alive here and it’s amazing to feel a part of history,” said Jarrett Sullivan.

IF YOU GO . . . .

Gardner After Hours returns Thursday with “Made by Hand,” which will give visitors the opportunity to explore the furniture, leather lace and other works in the collection. The nasturtiums are on display, and visitors can plant and bring home their own. Other programs are “Bella Notte,” May 16 and “Garden Party,” June 20. Tickets are $5 college students, $12 seniors and $15 adults. For information, go to www.gardnermuseum.org. The museum is at 280 Fenway, Boston. 617-566-1401